As scandal-plagued Miramonte Elementary School reopened with a new staff, L.A. school officials announced that ousted teachers could return if they are cleared in the investigation into faculty sexual misconduct.

China will sometimes say "no" and the world should get used to it.

Mississippi's Supreme Court on Thursday heard challenges to the scores of controversial pardons issued by former Gov. Haley Barbour on his way out of office, peppering lawyers with questions but making no immediate ruling.

A Syrian opposition group reported as many as 137 deaths at the hands of government forces. Britain's ambassador to Syria painted a picture of children and elderly being beaten and called for world condemnation of the regime's actions.

A Utah death row inmate, convicted of beating a man with a tire jack and puncturing his liver with an inserted tire iron, has requested that he be allowed to die by firing squad, officials said Thursday.

Ten states are being granted waivers to free them from some requirements of the No Child Left Behind education reform law, with President Barack Obama explaining Thursday that the move aims to "combine greater freedom with greater accountability."

James Carville says Republicans should have been careful what they wished for. Gingrich and Santorum will soon be out and the candidate will be the politically detached Romney

After noticing smoke seeping inside, a North Carolina bus driver rushed six elementary school children off her vehicle moments before it burst into flames.

Scientists say they "serendipitously" discovered that a drug used to treat a type of cancer quickly reversed Alzheimer's disease in mice.

A human rights group expressed alarm Thursday at the pace of executions in Iraq and called for Iraqi authorities to abolish the practice.

A video of a toddler crying while running in the snow nearly naked has sparked a firestorm in China, but the boy's father says the exercise was meant to strengthen his son.

Frida Ghitis says online hoarding of our private information is not something we can afford to "dismiss."

The bodies begin coming in before the sun rises to the sky. Some arrive with heads decapitated or their torsos split open like animals after slaughter. Or their limbs are mangled under the crush of rubble.

Suffering in the grip of a brutal winter where temperatures have not risen above freezing in nearly a month, Ukraine has seen a wave of deaths related to the cold, and the country's ambulance service is inundated with calls for help.

Police are investigating how dispatchers handled 911 calls from those seeking help before a Washington state man killed himself and his sons in a fiery explosion.

A tense calm reigned Thursday morning in the streets of Male, the capital of the Maldives, a day after the country's former president and his supporters clashed with the police.

Some of the bravest, noblest women and men I have met are members of the United States armed forces. To them, military intervention is not about winning a debate on television or sounding smart on Twitter. With the United Nations ruling out support for military options to stop the bloodbath in Homs in Syria, leading U.S. commentators are calling for NATO and the Arab League to intervene militarily.

Authorities treated more than 700 people for food poisoning after a political rally in southern Mexico this week, officials said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was apparently coached on how to describe his government's brutal crackdown on anti-government demonstrators just days before his appearance on an American network, according to purported e-mails of Syrian officials released by the hacking group known as Anonymous.

The University of Florida has temporarily suspended its chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity after learning about a hazing incident involving fraternity members, a university spokeswoman said Tuesday.